walked at an even pace, not hurrying, but not looking back. The camera stayed on the other child, even as my father walked away after my mother down the hill. They left it standing there.
The child got further and further away, silent at the crest of the rise. It never even cried: at least, not until we were too far away for the sound to be heard.
Then the camera turned a corner and it was gone.
The image cut back to white noise, and this time nothing came afterwards. Within a minute the tape turned itself off, leaving me staring at my reflection in the screen.
I fumbled for the remote, rewound, paused. Stared at the frozen image of a child, left standing at the top of a hill, my hands held up over my mouth.
The slot opened. A dim light shone down from above.
‘Hello, my dear,’ the man said. ‘I’m back.’
Sarah could not see his face. From the sound of his voice, it appeared he was sitting on the floor just behind her head.
‘Hello,’ she said, her voice as steady as she could make it. She wanted to shrink away from him, put just an extra inch of distance between them, but couldn’t move even that much. She fought to remain calm, to keep to her plan of sounding as if she didn’t care. ‘How are you today? Still insane, I guess.’
The man laughed quietly. ‘You’re not going to make me angry.’
‘Who wants you angry?’
‘So why do you say these things?’
‘My mom and dad are going to be worried sick. I’m scared. I may not be that polite.’
‘I understand.’
He was silent then, for a long time. Sarah waited.
Perhaps five minutes later, she saw a hand reaching out over her face. It held a glass of water. Without warning, he slowly tipped it. She got her mouth open in time, and drank as much as she could. The hand disappeared again.
‘Is that it?’ she said. Her mouth felt strange, clean and wet. The water had tasted the way she had always expected wine to, from the way grown-ups made such a big deal of it and rolled it around in their mouths like it was the best thing they had ever tasted. In fact, in her experience, wine generally tasted like something was wrong with it.
‘What else were you expecting?’
‘You want me to stay alive, then you’re going to have to give me something more than water.’
‘Why do you think I want you alive?’
‘Because otherwise you would have killed me right off and have me sitting naked someplace where you could look at me and jack off.’
‘That’s not a very nice thing to say.’
‘I refer you to my earlier comments. I’m not feeling very nice, and you’re a sicko, so I don’t have to be.’
‘I’m not a sicko, Sarah.’
‘No? How would you define yourself? Unusual?’
He laughed again, delightedly. ‘Oh certainly.’
‘Unusual like Ted fucking Bundy.’
‘Ted Bundy was an idiot,’ the man said. All humour had vanished from his voice. ‘A grandstanding fool and a fake.’
‘Okay,’ she said, trying to placate him, though privately she thought he now sounded pompous as well as insane. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not a big fan of his either. You’re much better. So do I get some food or what?’
‘Later, perhaps.’
‘Great. I’ll look forward to it. Cut it up small, so I can catch it.’
‘Good night, Sarah.’
When she heard him standing, her pretend calm fled. The plan hadn’t worked. At all. He knew she was frightened.
‘Please don’t put the lid back on. I can’t move anyway.’
‘I’m afraid I have to,’ the man said.
‘Please …’
It was replaced, and Sarah was in darkness again.
She heard his footsteps receding, a door shutting quietly, and then all was silent once more.
She licked frantically around her mouth, collecting as much of the remaining moisture as she could. Now that the initial shock of it was gone, she realized the water tasted different from the stuff she was used to at home. It must be from a different supply, which meant she had to be a long way from home. Like when you went on vacation. That was something, at least, something that she knew. The more she knew, the better.
Then she realized that maybe it was mineral water, something from a bottle, in which case the taste didn’t mean anything. It could just be a different brand. That didn’t matter. It was still worth thinking about. The more ideas she had, the better. Like the fact that when she’d mentioned her parents, the man hadn’t said again how he’d killed them. When he’d captured her he’d been very keen to talk about what he’d done to them. Maybe it meant something. Hopefully it meant that they were still alive, and he’d only said the other things to frighten her.
Maybe not. Sarah lay in the darkness, her hands clenched into fists, and tried not to scream.
Few people can be happy unless they
hate some other person, nation or creed.
Bertrand Russell
The flight got in to Los Angeles at 22.05. Nina had nothing except her handbag and the file, and Zandt could carry all he owned with one hand and not look lopsided. There was a car waiting for them. Nothing sleek and official. Just a cab Nina had booked from the plane, to drop him in Santa Monica and then take her home.
Lights and signs in the darkness, half-seen faces, the rustle and honk of life on just another of those evenings in a city whose heart never seems to be quite where you are, but is always round a corner, or down that street, or the other side of hulking buildings in some new club whose glory nights will be over before you’ve even heard of it. Between there and here are a clutch of cheap hotels, dusty liquor stores, car lots selling vehicles of dubious provenance. A tatty herd of people waiting on street corners with nothing very positive in mind, in a veldt of concrete bunkers housing businesses that will swallow countless hollow lives without ever being quoted on NASDAQ. Gradually the change to residential streets, and then into Venice. From the outside, on the right streets, Venice can look like it’s trying
